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La Maison Française’s April Calendar of Events Features Discussions About Literature, Art, Politics

March 29, 2012

La Maison Française at New York University will present a distinctive array of discussions about literature, art, philosophy, contemporary politics and much more in April, 2012. Please review the following calendar of events. The events are, unless otherwise noted, free and are held at the French cultural center, located at 16 Washington Mews, at University Place, New York, N.Y. For additional information, call 212.998-8750, or send an email to: maison.francaise@nyu.edu.

FRANÇOISE GIROUD was undoubtedly one of the most fascinating, the most intelligent, and the most powerful French women of the 20th century. A prolific writer and journalist, with deep political commitments, she was close to the Radical Socialist leader Pierre Mendès-France and later supported the Socialist François Mitterrand, but she accepted to serve as Minister for “la Condition feminine” and then Minister of Culture in the centrist régime of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. As editor of the newly founded Elle in 1946, and later, especially during 20 years at L’Express as the founding co-editor with Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, she guided the weekly news magazine that became the most potent voice in French journalism. Françoise Giroud influenced her entire generation and became an icon of French feminism.

Taking as a starting point a short excerpt from the archives of the Collège international de philosophie (an excerpt in which Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy briefly discuss the notion of responsibility), this event will focus on the concept of appropriation, approaching it from a philosophical, literary, and musical point of view.

How can we be responsible for something that we cannot foresee or control? What would it mean to answer for such a thing, appropriating it while at the same time letting it expropriate us? Starting with the example of responsibility – always more than a mere example among others, the presentations will reflect, directly and indirectly, on the oscillating structure that Derrida called exappropriation.

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Monday, April 9, 7:00 p.m.

MARIE DARRIEUSSECQ

Ecrivaine : écrire en français au féminin ?

In French.

Marie Darrieussecq was born in the Basque country, in France. She graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris and wrote her Ph.D. thesis on auto-fiction. At the same time, she wrote her first novel Truismes in six weeks (1996,translated in 1997 under the title: Pig Tales) which met with immediate worldwide success. Since then, she has published 15 more books with Editions P.O.L, six of which have been translated into English.

Marie Darrieussecq is today a notable figure in the distinguished younger generation of French writers. Her latest book, Clèves, was published in August 2011 by P.O.L.

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Wednesday, April 11, 7:00 p.m.
Institute of French Studies Colloquium&nbsp;

Presented with the additional support of Sofitel, Open Skies, CulturesFrance, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

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CONFERENCE

April 19 to 21

Autofiction : Literature in France Today

AUTOFICTION, combining two apparently contradictory concerns, autobiography and fiction, is the most important mode of writing in contemporary French literature. Serge Doubrovsky, who coined the term, has described autofiction as combining entirely real content and entirely fictional form. Using their real names, authors insert themselves into their own fictions in a search for self.&nbsp; Following its French beginnings, Autofiction has made headway in many other countries, notably in the U.S.

CATHERINE CUSSET
The Limits of Autofiction
MICHEL CONTAT
Autofiction and Existentialism
DANIEL MENDELSOHN
Autofiction Between Writer and Critic
TOM BISHOP
From the Nouveau Roman to Autofiction
CATHERINE MILLET
A simple question of method

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Friday, April 20, 7:00 to 8:30 pm

SERGE DOUBROVSKY
Keynote: Autofiction: Story and History

Discussion

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Saturday, April 21, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

ISABELLE GRELL
Doubrovsky and the Genesis of Autofiction
PHILIPPE FOREST
An experiment in Autofiction
SIRI HUSTVEDT
Memory and the Novel

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Saturday, April 21, 2:30 to 5:30 p.m.

RICK MOODY
Against Genre
MICHÈLE BACHOLLE-BOŠKOVIĆ
Annie Ernaux: Writing the Self, Writing Life
EUGENE NICOLE
An Autofiction Bigger Than Myself
GISELE SAPIRO
Title to be announced

Presentations in English
Brief readings by authors in French and in English

This conference is made possible by the generous major support of the Florence Gould Foundation with additional support from Open Skies, The Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and the NYU Humanities Initiative.

Drawing as Process in French Art&nbsp;
Offered in conjunction with "Storied Past: Four Centuries of French Drawings from the Blanton Museum of Art," exhibition on view at the Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 100 Washington Square East, April 17-July 14.
Exhibition information:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/

Panel&nbsp;1: Who is afraid of littérature?
Steven Crumb
33 Variations on a Digression by MB
Ourida Mostefai
Enjeux de l’enseignement
Michel Sitruk
Literature as a Business Model
Judith Miller, moderator